The Suicide Squad is probably the most violent film of the year. Viewers are subjected to subjected to beheadings, stabbings, people being skewered with a javelin, saps being shot at close range and seeing their innards strewn all over the set, only to be rewarded with hoardes of people being crushed by falling buildings. All this is shown for us to cheer over and to congratulate the members of the Suicide Squad.

The gist of the muddled script by James Gunn is that a group of convicts are sent by mean hag prison leader Amanda Waller ( an excellent Viola Davis presenting yet another memorable character in her repertoire) to destroy a laboratory in Panama where vicious, giant, alien starfish (!) are grown. The papa starfish is laughable and looks like a helium balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The location shots in Panama lovingly show the restored section of the old city with the colonial architecture bought back to life. It is the only charming thing in the movie.

Margot Robbie plays Harley Quinn once again with plastered-on makeup seemingly devised by Frankenstein’s makeup man Jack Pierce. Alas it was not done by him but by Sabrina Wilson. John Cena’s blatantly obvious scene in his tight, white underwear, hammers home that he is male. Cena, by the way, plays a character named Peacemaker, a misnomer if there ever was one because he has a murderous, mean disposition. He is handsome, however, and his fans will appreciate his bulging muscles.

One of the members of the squad is a walking shark who wears pants and has the intelligence of Elmer Fudd, if you can remember back that far.

The other sexual object in the story is leader “Bloodsport,” played by the stunningly massive Idris Elba. Here he uses a somewhat cockney accent, which he will have to lose if he auditions for James Bond. He reluctantly shows some leadership as commanded by Ms. Waller from the over-designed computer post. He leads the gang of misfits throughout their shenanigans through the jungle and Panama and comes out relatively unscathed.

There is no sense trying to relay the plot because it merely seems to consist of explosions, mayhem, blatant murders, shootings, neck slicing, chopping of heads, heart gouging, and other niceties of polite society.

However, to give it its due, there are some very funny scenes inserted as well to relieve the general horrors of all the mass killings. The comedy scenes somehow seem out of place, but they do serve to relieve the tensions of the so-called battles between the bad guys (the Suicide Squad) and the bad guys (the un-named Banana Republic forces). There are some good turns by Hispanic actors Juan Diego Botto as Presidente General Silvio Luna, Joaquin Cosio as Mayor General Mateo Suarez and Julio Cesar Ruiz as the comical Milton.

All in all, the film is a mess, but partly entertaining in the funny scenes. Stars such as Europe’s Alice Braga, Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, Australia’s Jai Courtney , and Joel Kinneman are mostly wasted in their parts. Don’t ask about Sylvester Stallone.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated “R” for strong violence and gore, language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and brief graphic nudity.)